


Quiddity

by JeanLuciferGohard



Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Gen, by which i mean my dude did in fact blow himself up tae fuck, do you ever just lay down and weep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22686334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanLuciferGohard/pseuds/JeanLuciferGohard
Summary: These are the things Palamedes knows as he dies:One. He could never survive without his cavalier. She might make it without him. She was always stronger that way.
Relationships: Camilla Hect & Palamedes Sextus
Comments: 8
Kudos: 84





	Quiddity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [historymiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/gifts).
  * Inspired by [watershed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22680055) by [historymiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss). 



This is how it happens:

Time gets very slow; he is watching, from somewhere outside of himself, as his eyelashes start to frizzle and char. She—both shes, actually, used to tease him how long they were, how little he, of all people, deserved it. His fingernails go next, unraveling like cheap knit, a ragged hem caught on a fence. 

She is never going to forgive him.

Thank God he’ll never have to see her face.

These are the things Palamedes Sextus knows as he dies:

One. He could never survive without her. She might make it without him. She was always stronger that way.

Two. There is not one iota, not one molecule of justice in the whole, rotten universe, but you have to pretend like there is, you have pick a hill to die on, and his was a woman murdered before she was even born, and that was maybe the stupidest thing he ever did, was to pick that hill, but admitting he was _wrong_ to pick it would, somehow, be worse.

Three. That things cannot be happening as slow as they are; as short as his hair is, it would’ve burnt off immediately. There is no possible way he should be able to feel the breeze shiver over the raw bones of his face, but he does, and he can see it happen, even though his eyes must be running down his jaw by now.

Four. Cam will never, ever forgive him for this, but maybe, hopefully, she might understand.

Five. Cam has always understood.

Six. He is buying her time. He is doing this because a woman was murdered and nobody said anything, and nobody cared, and that was _wrong_ , a wound in Creation he cannot abide, cannot forgive, and also suddenly a thing which is not as important as buying Camilla more time. The brightest mind of his generation, worth maybe ten minutes? Twenty? There’s not much of him left now, just light and char. Not enough. 

Seven. Cam will know what to do.

Eight. Cam always knows what to do.

Nine. Dying doesn’t feel at all like he thought it would. It doesn’t really feel _like_ anything. The quiddity of dying is...unstable. He’d frown if he still had a mouth. Hopefully, she’ll get off this rock, and find a ghost-talker, and he can bully her into formatting one or two last abstracts. Statistically, they will all die screaming. He is not sure if he is screaming. 

Ten. She’s going to hate him for this. Good thing he’ll be dead; he couldn’t live with that.

Then: Light. Char. Nothing.

Palamedes Sextus goes out knowing nothing, an insensate, god-killing star.


End file.
